American Life in Poetry: Column 160
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve mentioned how important close observation is in composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet, Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with suggestion. The poem closes with the car door shutting, and we readers are shut out of what will happen, though we can guess.
Three Teenage Girls: 1956
by Steve Orlen
Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and black Capri pants
And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their chins
Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing,
Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain,
The closest to the road with her left thumb stuck out
Not looking at the cars going past.
Every Friday night to the dance, and wet or dry
They get where they’re going, walk two miles or get a ride,
And now the two-door 1950 Dodge, dark green
Darkening as evening falls, stops, they nudge
Each other, peer in, shrug, two scramble into the back seat,
And the third, the boldest, famous
For twice running away from home, slides in front with the man
Who reaches across her body and pulls the door shut.
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American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Steve Orlen. Reprinted from “The Elephant’s Child: New & Selected Poems 1978-2005” by Steve Orlen, Ausable Press, 2006, by permission of the author and publisher.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.
There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication at http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, April 17th, 2007, in honor of National Poetry Month and National Poem In Your Pocket Day
-related to posts: Celebrate Poetry (Let Me Count The Ways), and Got Poetry? (National Poem In Your Pocket Day)
I am so in love with poetry like this. The suggestion that can keep my mind wandering back to a line or two all day. I feel almost as if the passion, the wordplay, the new insight burrows in and won’t let me alone. In a sense, reading poetry every day is a good way of living with the temperature turned up a degree or two.
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Bo, I feel the same way. The way he captures the details, you have a vivid image of the 3 girls. And then, the ending — it just haunts you.
I was also struck by the juxtaposition of the year — 1956. Because it also plays off the subject of 3 teenage girls, getting into a stranger’s car in 1956. And 3 teenage girls getting into a stranger’s car in 2008.
In the 50’s, they were probably much less scared and cautious about it, even though there were just as many creeps out there. And today, so many parents have warned their kids not to even talk to strangers. In the 50’s, I’m sure kids were told they could go to other adults for help.
All of that is playing out in those simple lines. I like your expression – reading poetry every day is a good way of living with the temperature turned up a degree or two. That captures it.
I have a friend who told me that she and her husband read poetry to each other every night before they go to sleep. She said, she just could not get into poetry before. But after they started this ritual, now she loves it. There’s something to be said for reading poetry out loud, as with Poem In Your Pocket Day. It takes on a whole other aura.
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Only problem with bedtime poetry, QM, it keeps me awake. Sometimes for hours. I’m much better with a poem (or 3 or 10) with my tea and sunrise.
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Ah, a true morning person. 8) Yes, sunrise is good for poetry, too. I forgot to mention in my last comment on Book Talk (Comment #88 – LINK), that both Willa and Zora wrote often in the mornings. And many writers will tell you it’s the best time to write so that you can have a guilt-free day the rest of that 24 hours.
Of course, I’m a night owl. And I like to both read and write at night. But it’s funny, because I used to get up at 4:30 or 5am so that I could write before I went in to my corporate job. Then I’d stay up late after work to write, too. I had so much fire back then, I would write whenever I could squeeze in an hour or so.
These days, I try to structure it into every day, and even create a yearly structure where I have times when I go off and write for a few days. I know not everyone an do that.
What’s exciting is finding times when reading and writing works best for us. And I’ve found it changes over the course of a life, depending on what else is going on.
Do you have tea every morning with sunrise? That sounds like a lovely ritual.
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Striking poem, QM, for all the reasons you and Bo captured. Yes, haunting last line.
I didn’t read that poem out loud but I often like to, especially when the rhythm of the words is especially pronounced. It helps me a lot, too, when my mind wanders. Reading out loud signals to my whole being to take in the thing that’s being read.
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Once I hit 50, QM, my need for 8 hours of sleep vanished. I can manage on about 5. And so, yes, I start my mornings with a fair amount of loosely structured activities or ritual, whatever you choose to call it.
Tea and sunrise, reading, journaling and creating a mandala. And a kind of meditation-gratitude list-plan-my-day session. I’m at a decidedly delicious stage of my life – no one depending on me for their basic needs any longer, and so I am rather a morning putterer.
I’m always amazed when I check the time and it’s only 9 am. I’m usually mid-stride in my writing or photography by then. It’s a big change for me. For most of my life, I barely functioned at that time of the day. 🙂
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three girls thumb it, route
9 corner, sunday return
to the dorm, rumpled.
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Great haiku, lil. Love the response!
ybonesy, I like that — the signal to your whole body to take in the thing that’s being read. When someone reads out loud, the whole body takes it in through the person who is reading. It’s more visceral than just sitting and reading ourselves.
Bo, so wonderful that you get to enjoy your mornings in a new way. I am over 50, but lately I am finding I am needing more sleep. I don’t know if it’s the change of light or if I’m just tired. I wish I could get to a place of needing less, as you have.
I just read somewhere that the Dalai Lama (who was in Rochester, MN this week BTW) gets 8 to 9 hours a night. I asked Liz how he got so much done in a day, when he slept that many hours. She said, “I guess he’s really focused.”
That made sense to me. I want to be that focused — one-pointed as they say — and less scattered.
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It is amazing that he gets that much sleep. (That’s how much I get each night.) I would have thought he was a 4-5 hour/night sleeper. BTW, have you ever met someone who naturally only needs 4-5 hours? My brother-in-law is that way, and he’s always in motion.
If I get into a routine, I actually do best at 7 hours, but it has to be solid, uninterrupted. That’s the hard part, as I’m a light sleeper.
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